Hi all, I’m somewhat confused about the rear view mirrors on the XK120. My car (a recent purchase) came with a slightly hacked mirror, I’ll explain…
I have some pre-restoration pictures with the car and I can see that the mirror that is currently on the car was the one it had before restoration. It has a small convex mirror and had a long stem, the base measures 50mm x 21mm with mounting holes at 33mm centres. The previous owner cut a chunk out of the stem to make it a short stem mirror to fit between aero screens but I won’t go into that!
1/ Were small convex glass mirrors ever fitted as standard to the XK120 OTS (1952)
2/ All repro mirrors seem to have a small mounting base 45 or 48mm x 18 or 20mm but with mounting holes drilled at 30mm centres
To mount a new mirror it seems likely I will have to elongate the holes in the scuttle to take the 30mm spaced holes
3/ On a related point, there is a hole in the scuttle almost in front of the mirror, should this be for a Tenax fastener post?
There have been many discussions on the subject, but the survey below describes the overall situation, however there have been many reports of XK 120s that had a different (original?) rear view mirror.
The short stem small mirror you have is the C.2887, used on the early XK 120s. It was replaced by a similar small mirror C.4079 that got a longer stem. Towards 1953, this version was replaced by a wider mirror C.5500 that used the same long stem.
However, in case you use the “cowling” for the mirror in combination with aero screens, owners went back to the first short version or opted for the C.2695 (Jaguar Mk V) which has a short stem but a wider mirror glass (as I did on my 1954 XK 120; see pic 1). Or even a completely different wider mirror on a short stem (see pic 2 below)
The Tonneau cover uses a fastening point close to the mirror
Bob, that is really helpful thank you. My small mirror was actually on a long stem - the previous owner cut it down to fit under the cowling! So it sounds like mine was a C.4079, a long stem with a small convex mirror which, from your information, may well have been correct for mid 1952. I guess it might be possible to swap the old head onto a new stem?
Theoretically possible but you need to bend back the tabs that hold the mirror glass in place. They tend to break rather quickly + even more when you try to bend them back again after you’ve swapped the stem.
I have successfully removed the glass from the original mirror and also from a repro with the larger mirror - they can be very carefully slid from under the tabs rather than bending the tabs.
I have also found a company to re-silver the mirror (not cheap at £60) but as far as I know no one remanufactures the convex xk120 mirrors. I don’t ancipate an issue with removing the head now the mirror is out either.
So that just leaves the mounting base, anyone any thoughts on the distance between the hole centres please (30 or 33mm) and the size of the base?
